Movie Reaction: The Woman King

Formula: Gladiator * Africa

 

Crowd-pleasers are some of the hardest films to write about. I mean they are movie meant to please the masses. I’m part of the masses. Unless my take is “actually, I didn’t like this”, what is there left to say? The Woman King has received one of only two A+ CinemaScores in 2022. Unlike RottenTomatoes, which is open to either critics or whoever uses the site, CinemaScore is based on letter grades from people who actually saw the movie. Still imperfect, but an A+ score means a lot more. The only other A+ in 2022 was Top Gun: Maverick, which tells you a lot about how absolutely crowd-pleasing a movie must be to earn that. And I’m adding to the chorus. It’s hard to imagine anyone seeing The Woman King without so prior aversion to the genre disliking it.

 

The Woman King is a throwback movie in a lot of ways. It’s a war epic with all the familiar beats. Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) is a headstrong woman living in 1800s West Africa. After rebuking a number of arranged marriages, her father sends her to join a tribe of women warriors called the Agojie. The Agojie are led by general Nanisca (Viola Davis) and serve under the young King Ghezo (John Boyega). Ghezo and his people, the Dahomey, are at an impasse. His kingdom has grown wealthy under the thumb of the Oyo Empire thanks to the slave trade. Advisors like Nanisca would like King Ghezo to get out of that practice. While he would too, he’d be risking the financial stability of his kingdom. Also, he’d like to get out from under the Oyo Empire and is already struggling to find the resources to do that. Despite these political implications, most of The Woman King is a boot camp and war movie. It’s about Nawi trying to become an Agojie, Nanisca battling some demons from her past, and the Dahomey trying to stop the Oyo. This is Gladiator or Braveheart only set in Africa.

 

I really love the setting of this movie. This just isn’t an era and location I see much of. It’s Africa still holding onto its old ways while getting introduced to the modern world. Very much like Japan in The Last Samurai. I love seeing that culture clash on screen. On a comparatively modest budget*, The Woman King looks great and feels huge. The costuming and production design look great. The battle scenes have scale. It didn’t feel like it was made on three sound stages the way that many bigger films still can feel like.

 

*Braveheart was made for $60 million in 1995. The Woman King was made for $50 million now. That’s incredible.

 

There’s a part of me that went into this a bit skeptical about the cast. Would this lean too heavily on “girl power” performances? Could 57-year-old prestige actress Viola Davis pull off what’s essentially an action hero role? Almost immediately, all of my concerns went away. Watching Davis in this reminded me of Meryl Streep in The River Wild. Given her filmography, Meryl doesn’t seem like an obvious action star, but 10-minutes in, I felt silly questioning her. Davis is a little surprising, given her age. Late 50s is an odd time to start in this genre; although much of that delay wasn’t her choice. Otherwise, it’s not that surprising Davis would be excellent here. She’s incredible at authority figures. This is just taking the step of having her physically assault people rather than just verbally doing so. The film overall does well pitching the Agojie as elite warriors. It’s the idea that toughness is being about to take a hit not to hit the hardest. Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, and others are all carry themselves like warriors who know how to handle themselves. And they are just great character types you see in this kind of movie. I can’t stress this enough. The reason why The Woman King is so good is that it realizes that tropes became tropes for a reason. It’s a familiar movie structurally in very satisfying ways.

 

The thorniest part of The Woman King is the slave trade aspect. The movie confronts the topic. Much of the film is directly about that. It doesn’t wallow in the darkest parts of it though. And that’s fine. If you need that, watch 12 Years a Slave. The Woman King reminds me a bit of The Patriot that way. In that film, at one point we find out that all the black people working on Mel Gibson’s property are actually free and choose to work there. Historically, that’s bullshit. The point of The Patriot though is that I’m supposed to root for Mel Gibson, so I let it go because that’s just not what the movie wants to get into. The Woman King has a “slavery is bad” ethos. Many of the characters certainly have more evolved views than they really would’ve. I don’t care.

 

As I’ve said a few times now, The Woman King is just a good movie. Top to bottom, it’s something people will enjoy. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood has made a strong case between this and The Old Guard that she should be trusted with whatever action movie she wants to make. My only worry now is that Viola Davis gets the Liam Nesson bug and dips all the way into this world.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend